Community Reviews

The cenotes were part of my plan but a lot of these are impossible to get to. Cenotes are everywhere in Yucatan, basically sinkholes, but there are only 99(?) as part of the Chicxulub crater which are supposed to be listed on some website but it doesn't work anymore. I had already given up on this until the second last day of the Yucatan trip until I met a French hitchhiker at Uxmal who actually mainly wanted a ride but was talking about "senoetes" and after some thinking I finally understood he was ALSO looking for the cenotes and he was told by a local guy at Uxmal where to find one! Now I don't know if it was part of the crater and will later be inscribed if ever but I was so happy to get to one in the end.

The cenote is called X'Batun and is 10 minutes off the main road. We tried to find another one as marked on the highway going the opposite way but after 5 minutes we gave up and figured it was indeed one of those that you would have to wade through the bush to discover. Anyhow, the X'Batun was open for visitors for a small fee and it includes two spots. The first one was large wide as pictured above and already had many people swimming in the cool water. With the temperatures so hot/warm this is the best place to dip and cool off. One actually doesn't need to swim to feel cooler, just hanging out in the sinkhole is pretty cool. The second one is used for swimming but also has access to the underground caves for scuba diving, with two small groups descending on that afternoon alone.

For a visitor this place is nice regardless of any world heritage status. The main reason these places are interesting are for the crater impact which is important for the Earth's history. One can read plenty about this on Wikipedia and the UNESCO website so I will not repeat it all. By visiting one it is not possible to see this but mapping them out and a bird's eye view does, so visiting is actually not part of understanding the site per se, merely it shows what the cenotes look like from a close-up. In the end they are "just" holes created by the crater impact.

Try visiting one of these as you cruise around Yucatan for a nice surprise.

Jorge Daniel Magana Garcia

Mexico - 07-Jan-17 -

Cenotes are sanctuaries, and the site qualifies to be a mixed one. Complementary sites could be included in the buffer zones, too. It's unfortunate though that other sites in several Tentative Lists have been removed, so it is understandable that the peresquites change. Increasing the list of delisted sites should be considered, and maybe even the option of broader transnational parameters. Of course, UNESCO has to allow for a broader debate, true to its Specialized agency status, but that shouldn't impede the inclusion of more adequate membership and even agents that remain truthful to their conditioned situation as citizens or ex profeso nature.